FEISTY PETS

Feisty Pets

Feisty Pets are interactive plush toys – with a difference. They look cuddly and cute but transform from friendly to ferociously funny when squeezed. In an instant the different characters lose their smiles and pleasant expressions – and display fangs, sarcastic grins or weird faces. Created by Mark Forti of WMC toys, the brand was launched by WMC at the New York Toy Fair in 2016.
This simple, but skilfully executed, concept is today a massive hit in the media and at retail. There are more than 80 characters in the Feisty Pets range. But that’s partly down to its online impact.
Fans quickly started discovering the dual personality plush characters on their own, and went on to film and post YouTube, Instagram and Facebook videos using the Feisty plush toys. Fan-videos have gone absolutely viral leading to an inkling of an idea: Feisty Films. A "Toys-to-Life” series capturing the most popular memes, current events, pop-culture trends, TV shows and films, and everything else in this crazy media-driven world! In just a year, the Feisty Films YouTube series’ global viewership skyrocketed and has long surpassed 100,000,000 views.
Within six months of the launch, twenty-somethings, teens and tweens fully embraced the brand, buying over one million Feisty Pets toys (almost entirely through e-commerce). The online presence of the brand has played a major role in making this happen, building on a fan-led marketing approach.
The innovation and originality of Feisty Pets, both as a brand and as a marketing phenomenon, makes it really stand out in the plush category. Mondo TV now expects to replicate the success that Feisty Pets is having in the US, where it has long been a digital phenomenon, in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
That enormous potential, incidentally, extends across a wide age group. This is a brand with potential not only in the areas you might expect of a plush-inspired property but with a wide-ranging appeal that boosts its potential as a lifestyle brand. For that reason, it is difficult to limit the target audience to one demographic. A lot of interest comes both from the younger age group – 6-9-year-olds – and from a more mature audience of nine and up, as far as young adults. As for gender, there is no doubt that Feisty Pets is equally loved by both females and males.